Scars Like Flames
by Settiai
Summary: Nobody understood why she hadn't wanted to heal her scars. [Coraline Shepard: Colonist, Ruthless, Sentinel] :: past F!Shep/Kaidan, F!Shep/Thane


Nobody understood why she hadn't wanted to heal her scars when the technology was out there, just waiting to be installed on the _Normandy_ as soon as she said "yes." Dr. Chakwas reminded her that it was an option time and time again, but she never took the doctor up on it. Instead, she made excuse after excuse. 50,000 platinum was too much to waste on something so superficial. She didn't have the time, not with the Collectors out there. She'd spent too much time during the past two years on a table to willingly put herself back on it just to make her look a little prettier.

In the end, though, even the best of her excuses rang hollow. She'd be surprised if Chakwas hadn't figured out the truth for herself, but the doctor had never asked her or called her out for lying. Her friend had given her that much.

The truth was, she liked them.

Not always, of course. There were a few times, during the most stressful days of her time with Cerberus, when the scarring became too extreme even for her. There were days when her skin seemed to burn red, more machine than flesh and blood, and her eyes flashed back at her in the mirror like a thousand suns.

It was a sign that she was going too far. A sign that she needed to rein herself in. A sign that she was starting to forget who she was.

"_You never regret any of it?_" Kaidan had asked her once, only days before Virmire. Before she lost him without ever finding out what the two of them might have become. _"You don't even think about the people that you sacrifice along the way?"_

"_I remember them all,"_ she had told him back then. And then he had become another face and name to add to her ever-growing list. Another person to remember, to grieve for, to wonder "what if?" about late at night when sleep wouldn't come.

The scars were her conscience, a physical reminder that she was who she made herself to be. The Butcher of Torfan they had named her once upon a time, all those years ago. The soldier who was willing to do whatever it took to see her mission completed. The woman who sacrificed the Council in order to ensure Sovereign's defeat.

People had said that there was a monster hiding under her skin. Now the monster was out in the open for anyone and everyone to see.

The scars had all but disappeared during her six months on Earth, sitting in her fancy prison wondering and worrying about the Reapers' eventual invasion. It had been ironic, really, all things considered. 304,942 more names to add to her list. Men, woman, and children. Some of them were batarians, yes, but not all of them. Nobody had said anything, but she knew that much.

Who knew how many of those hundreds of thousands had been slaves? Who knew how many of them had been people she had known as a child, before slavers had come and destroyed everything she had ever known? Friends? Neighbors? Family? She had seen her parents' bodies, but three of her five cousins had never been found.

Her skin should have burned like flames, and instead it healed. Her scars faded and then disappeared, as if they'd never been there at all. The monster was hidden.

And then Earth had burned instead, scars as red as the ones she missed spreading across the globe as the _Normandy_ ran from the fight. As red as blood, the entire planet bleeding as they fled.

Her scars came back slowly, nothing more than a tiny crack of red at first. A flicker that she caught out of the corner of her eye, that was only visible in the mirror if it caught it at the perfect angle. But they grew, slowly but surely, spreading across her face like a familiar friend. Not too many. Not too fast. She was careful, meticulous, like her mother had taught her to be decades ago, growing crops on a tiny farm that only existed in her memories now. She let the scars grow, showing the world just who and what she was, but she didn't let them take her over.

"_They suit you, siha,"_ Thane had whispered to her once, his fingers tracing the glowing scars on her face, on her neck, on her chest, on her thighs.

He had seen her scars for what they were. He always had. The part of her that desperately wanted to believe in the afterlife that he held so dear hoped that he always would.

(She missed him more than she had ever thought possible, an ever-present ache in her chest that never went away. He had promised to wait for her, across the sea. If there was something after death, she wanted more than anything to meet him there someday.)

She stared at her reflection in the mirror, water dripping from her face. There was a hint of red in her eyes. Not much, not yet, but enough to let her know to be careful. Enough to remind her that she couldn't let the loss and the grief she was feeling cause her to lose control. She might be able to justify her actions in her own mind, but the scars told the truth.

Part of her wondered if things might have played out differently if she'd had a physical reminder like the scars back on Torfan. Or during that raid on the slaver base. Or on Asteroid X57. Or during the battle of the Citadel. There was a fine line between making a ruthless decision because it was for the best of the mission and making one because of hatred, or anger, or fear, or any other emotion. Sometimes she didn't know, deep down, where some of her past decisions stood on that scale.

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

The universe took everything from her, eventually. Her parents. Her team on Torfan. Kaidan. Mordin. Thane. Who was next? How much more was going to be asked of her before everything was said and done?

Slowly, reluctantly, she opened her eyes.

And they flashed red.


End file.
